00:00Today on Forbes, AI startup Flock thinks it can eliminate all crime in America.
00:08In a windowless room inside Atlanta's Dunwoody Police Department, Lt. Tim Fecht hits a button
00:14and an insectile DJI drone rises silently from the station rooftop.
00:20It already has its coordinates – a local mall where a 911 call has alerted the cops
00:25to a male shoplifter.
00:27From high above the complex, Fecht zooms in on a man checking his phone, then examines
00:32a group of people waiting for a train.
00:34They're all hundreds of yards away, but crystal clear on the room-dominating display inside
00:39the department's crime center – a classroom-sized space with walls covered in monitors flashing
00:45real-time crime data, surveillance and license plate reader camera feeds, gunshot detection
00:51reports, digital maps showing the location of cop cars across the city.
00:56As more 911 calls come in, AI transcribes them on another screen.
01:01Fecht can access any of it with a few clicks.
01:04Twenty minutes down the road from Dunwoody, in an office where Flock safety's cameras
01:09and gunshot detectors are arrayed like museum pieces, 38-year-old CEO and co-founder Garrett
01:15Langley presides over the $300 million in estimated 2024 sales company responsible for it all.
01:23Since its founding in 2017, Flock, which was valued at $7.5 billion in its most recent funding
01:29round, has quietly built a network of more than 80,000 cameras pointed at highways, thoroughfares
01:35and parking lots across the U.S. They record not just the license plate numbers of the cars
01:40that pass them, but their make and distinctive features – broken windows, dings, bumper stickers.
01:47Langley estimates its cameras help solve one million crimes a year. Soon they'll help solve
01:53even more. In August, there was a plan for Flock's cameras to take to the skies mounted
01:58on its own quote, made-in-America drones. Produced at a factory the company opened earlier
02:03this year near its Atlanta offices, they'll add a new dimension to Flock's business and
02:08aim to challenge Chinese drone giant DJI's dominance.
02:13Langley offers a prediction. In less than 10 years, Flock's cameras, airborne and fixed,
02:19will eradicate almost all crime in the U.S. He acknowledges that programs to boost youth
02:24employment and cut recidivism will help.
02:28It sounds like a pipe dream from another AI-can-solve-everything tech bro, but Langley, in the face of a wave of opposition
02:35from privacy advocates and Flock's archrival, the $2.1 billion in 2024 revenue police tech giant
02:41Axon Enterprise, is a true believer. He's convinced that America can and should be a place where everyone
02:48feels safe. And once it's draped in a vast net of U.S.-made Flock surveillance tech, he says it will be.
02:55Langley says, quote,
02:57I've talked to plenty of activists who think crime is just the cost of modern society.
03:02I disagree. I think we can have a crime-free city and civil liberties. We can have it all.
03:08He adds that in municipalities in which Flock is deployed, the average criminal, those between 16 and 24
03:15committing non-violent crime, quote, will most likely get caught.
03:20Not always, though. Back at the Dunwoody Police Department, the cops are unable to identify that
03:26shoplifter. But Fecht and his boss, Major Patrick Krieg, are quick to reel off other cases in which
03:32they say Flock was pivotal in finding offenders. An ATM theft gang that knocked off pharmacies across
03:38the East Coast until Flock's cameras tracked one of their getaway vehicles. An armed man headed into
03:44a bustling bar district, identified via drone by the tattoo on his neck, and apprehended before he
03:49could do harm. A woman who had pulled a gun on her neighbor. When the July 4th parade, the biggest in
03:56Georgia, came to Dunwoody a few days later, Flock cameras were watching for those who might disrupt it.
04:02Krieg says, quote,
04:03It just gives us the opportunity to ensure the safety of the community during huge events like
04:09that. For full coverage, check out Thomas Brewster's piece on Forbes.com. This is Kieran Meadows from
04:18Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.
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